Items tagged with iPhone

Hot on the heels of Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 exploding in certain cases came a number of stories of other smartphones following suit. The biggest of those is with Apple's iPhone, and in particular, the two-year-old iPhone 6. At least eight cases in China arose from consumer iPhones that caught fire, and as you'd expect, Apple took the complaints very seriously (especially given the timing). After its research, the Cupertino company established that the phones only caught fire due to external physical damage, not a fault of the product itself. The company's official statement reads, "The units we've...Read more...

Samsung scored another victory today its long-running legal fight with Apple over patent infringement. Apple originally won the case against Samsung way back in 2012, with the latter being ordered to pay nearly $1 billion in damages for infringing on iPhone design patents across 11 products. Samsung eventually had the damages reduced to $548 million, and then decided challenge a lower court ruling ordering it to pay $399 million. The Supreme Court heard Samsung’s arguments and in an 8-0 ruling agreed the South Korean company is not liable for the $399 million judgement. With its ruling, the eight...Read more...

It's no secret that Apple places a high value on customer security and privacy, and the company goes to great lengths to make sure that it's a market-leader in both regards. However, even the most careful companies can be exposed to crippling security vulnerabilities. If software contains a previously unidentified bug or exploit, it just sits there waiting for some enterprising user to spot it. And that's just what happened with Apple's Activation Lock. When an iPhone or iPad is lost, the user has the ability to enable "Find My iPhone", which can immediately locks the device, requiring correct...Read more...

It can be a punch to gut having to pay a premium price for a genuine accessory from Apple (or any company for that matter). The alternative is to save a few bucks by going with a knockoff or a supposedly certified accessory from a third-party at a discount, but doing so is a gamble. A new study in the U.K. found that almost every single fake Apple charger is a safety hazard. U.K.'s Chartered Trading Standards Institute commissioned UL safety specialists to purchase 400 counterfeit Apple charges online and test them for any safety risks. Out of all those 400 samples, just three had enough insulation...Read more...

Apple introduced a bunch of new features with iOS 10 when it released a couple of months ago, but more recent incremental updates have given iPhone users more than they bargained form. There are complaints that installing the iOS 10.1.1 update is somehow making batteries drain faster than they normally would, as well as giving inaccurate readings of battery life.That's an annoying combination to deal with. Some users report having ample battery life before going to bed—well over half and sometimes even close to full—yet waking up to a dead phone. That shouldn't happen if there are not any apps...Read more...

If you’re tired of the same old, same old when it comes to iPhone display technology, there might be much to look forward to in 2017. According to a new report, Apple is planning to make a big splash with the iPhone 8, which will arrive in fall 2017, coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the original iPhone. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is working on at least ten different iPhone 8 prototypes, one of which features a curved OLED display. This move would finally bring Apple in line with display technology that Android flagships adopted years ago. Samsung has been a leader in...Read more...

It’s no secret that President-elect Donald Trump is not a fan of U.S. manufacturers using overseas labor to build their products. Trump has been angling to stop Carrier from exporting American jobs, and he has railed against Ford for moving jobs to Mexico. Trump has also made Apple — one of the world’s most profitable companies — a target of his attacks. “I was saying, make America great again, and I actually think we can say now, and I really believe this, we're gonna get things coming,” said Trump in January. “We're gonna get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country,...Read more...

One of the criticisms against Apple and its iPhone line is that its handsets are often behind the technological curve in terms of hardware and features. Be that as it may, no other company makes more money from smartphone sales than Apple. Heck, it's not even close. The latest research from Strategy Analytics shows that global smartphone profits topped $9 billion in the third quarter of 2016, almost all of which went into Apple's pocket. “We estimate the global smartphone industry realized total operating profits of $9.4 billion during Q3 2016. Apple dominated and captured a record 91 percent share...Read more...

Remember getting Rickrolled? Talk about an annoying trend, but at least you could exit out of the 1980s hit single and resume normal activities (except for those dancing webpages on the desktop designed to dodge your exit attempts). Well, there's a new prank going around, one that can crash any iPhone handset in a not-so-obvious way. The prank consists of a short video that, when watched, slows down and eventually freezes any iPhone model. It doesn't happen right away—a user may be able to swipe through screens, open a couple of apps, or check email before the performance degradation becomes obvious....Read more...

This week, a report ousted Apple's decision to throttle the Qualcomm modem found in most of its iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models to match the performance of the Intel modem found in other versions. Now, according to sources close to the matter, it's absolutely the case but is there a real issue? The issue involves Apple's need to dual-source the iPhone 7's modem block with either a Qualcomm X12 LTE modem or an Intel XMM 7360 chip. As a company that sells millions upon millions of smartphones, Apple needs to plan every launch and production roll-out very strategically and supply...Read more...

One of the common arguments in favor of the iPhone and iOS devices in general is that "it just works." It's an oversimplified retort often thrown around by people who favor iOS gadgets over Android equivalents, but is it also an inaccurate one? A new report by Blanco Technology Group suggests that in reality Android devices work more often. There is a fair amount of surprising data contained in The State of Mobile Device Performance Health Report, which is an in-depth quarterly review of global mobile device trends, including diagnostic testing, performance issues, and outright failures. It begins...Read more...

2016 is going to be remembered for a number of fortunate and unfortunate things, with one topic that falls into the latter category being the debacle of U.S. law enforcement vs. Apple. The FBI and other US federal agencies have made it no secret that they would like to be able to gain access to any smartphone if the need arises - something that anyone who cares even remotely about their privacy shouldn't be okay with. In the months that followed, the FBI somehow managed to break into an iPhone 5C without any help from Apple. And while it's not clear if the agency is able to pull that off on more...Read more...

Apple may be an American company, but the bulk of its products (save for the long-neglected Mac Pro, which is assembled in the United States) are manufactured in China. The relatively low cost of labor, coupled with premium pricing for devices like the iPhone, has allowed Apple to become one of the most profitable companies in the world. However, according to a new report from the Nikkei Asian Review, during the past year, Apple has at least explored the idea of manufacturing the iPhone in the United States. According to a source for the publication, “Apple asked both Foxconn and Pegatron, the...Read more...

In search of the next big money maker, Apple is considering a foray into augmented reality, a sector company CEO Tim Cook thinks will be really big. The company's interest is described as being in the exploratory phase at this point, as it look at whether there exists a significant market opportunity for a set of AR glasses that would wirelessly connect to iPhone devices, the latter of which is Apple's true cash cow. The secret project is similar to what Google attempted with Glass. Google didn't get all that far with it, at least not on the consumer end of the spectrum, though Google's shortcoming...Read more...